Companies

Intensys http://www.intensys.com/ On Jan. 22 this company unveiled its new 6 kW alkaline fuel cell generator with CHP functionality. “It provides 6 kW electricity and 5,2 kW heat producing no waste except pure water. The conversion of hydrogen into energy is around 90% and the system is virtually maintenance-free.” The Intensys system runs on ambient air and industrial grade hydrogen. Hydrogen is abundantly available on Earth and safer than natural gas or gasoline.

PolyFuel http://www.polyfuel.com has developed the only commercially-viable membrane specifically for use in direct methanol fuel cell power systems. PolyFuel?üs innovative membrane technology will enable developers and manufacturers to create direct methanol fuel cell systems that deliver unlimited, unplugged runtimes for mobile computing and communication devices, such as laptop computers, tablet PCs and mobile phones. The PolyFuel? membrane will enable fuel cell systems to be smaller, lighter, and less expensive than systems made with competing membranes, thereby enabling the wide proliferation of fuel cell power systems in portable devices

Research

The Body Electric

Researchers at Sandia and UT-Austin have developed prototype fuel cells that can generate electricity from glucose. Fuel cells have gotten a lot of press recently, but most of the popular designs have a serious issue. They require hydrogen as a fuel source, and while hydrogen is incredibly abundant, getting it from water, hydrocarbons, or other sources is pretty energy-intensive. As a result, hydrogen fuel cells have looked a bit less like an alternative energy that could help lessen our dependence on renewables– like solar or wind energy– than a form of premium power, a very sophisticated delivery system.

As a result, a number of researchers are working to develop fuel cells that run on more common hydrogen-rich fuels, but which still have the benefits of fuel cells (most notably their very low pollution rates). The New York Times reports on two efforts to use glucose. One team is working on creating a device that would be implanted in the body, and generate electricity by drawing on blood sugar:

Dr. [Stanley] Kravitz and fellow Sandia researchers are developing an array of tiny glass needles, as slim and sharp as a mosquito's proboscis, that could, for example, be imperceptibly “plugged in” to a soldier's arm and used to convert glucose from the human body into energy.

“Suppose you could make a patch that went on the arm and had little micro needles that didn't hurt,” Dr. Kravitz said. “Now the soldier just needs to eat an Oreo cookie to keep his radio going.”

However, they've got a lot of ground to cover before the technology can come to a body near you:

“The efficiency stinks right now,” Dr. Kravitz acknowledged, noting that so far Sandia researchers were able to produce power in the milliwatt range, enough to power a tiny light-emitting diode - while a car would require kilowatts of power.